SPECTATOR SPORT
Life and works
Simon Barnes
Thus a hagiography becomes by easy stages a hatchet job. The biographer who feels his love has been betrayed by the life of his love-object reacts like the woman scorned, and in the complex of emotions fails to see the tautology that lurks within: unusual people lead unusual lives.
Which brings us by easy stages to Paul Gascoigne. It seems that the entire world, or at least that part of it that notices sport- ing things, is in the grip of Biographer's Error when it comes to Gascoigne. No one can see the man's exceptional works any more; all is obscured by his exceptional life.
Recently there were allegations of wife- beating and photographs of his bruised wife, Sheryl, in the newspapers. These were followed, not exactly by coincidence, with a sending-off in a European match. Gas- coigne publicly apologised — for the latter offence.
His club, Glasgow Rangers, was swift to forgive; strange how readily forgiveness comes to those who find it to their financial advantage. He was not dropped from last weekend's game against Aberdeen, as many moralists felt he should have been. And, more or less inevitably, he responded by scoring a blinding goal from a free kick.
There are all kinds of theories about Gas- coigne, and just about all of them are wrong. One of them is that he is stupid. This is to take a very narrow view of intelligence. The wit, imagination, strength of purpose and extraordinary understanding of three- dimensional space that Gascoigne can demonstrate on a football field are startling. He has moments when that overworked sporting word 'genius' is for once justified.
Another theory is that fame has undone him. But in the witch's cauldron of Gas- coigne's nature, fame and name are just one more pint of bat's blood to pour into the brew. If Gascoigne's talent had been for a less well rewarded profession, his life would have been just as turbulent. We just wouldn't have known about it.
A novelist writes what he is. By the same ineluctable rule, a footballer plays what he is. Gascoigne's turbulent nature has made him a sublime footballer, whose wildness is completed by the twin streaks of self- destruction and malice. There is a devil in Gascoigne: that is what his life and works are about, and they are, as I say, insepara- ble. I am not seeking to excuse, only to explain. A gorgeous goal against Aberdeen does not make wife-beating acceptable, least of all to the wife.
That genius forgives all is a doubtful proposition at the best of times, perhaps more so when the genius is poured into something as ephemeral as football. But that doesn't alter the fact that the awfulness of Gascoigne and the wonder of Gascoigne are all part of the same exceptional person.
These days, when someone gets really famous, we get more of the life than we bargained for; so much so that life tends to eclipse works, and the media leads us all into Biographer's Error. D.H. Lawrence had it straight: 'Never trust the teller trust the tale.'
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